OLED Lamps: Sleek and Thin

A lot of people are talking about OLEDs, but this is the first time I’ve actually considered that OLEDs can be used to actually light stuff up, just like LEDs. The beauty of OLED displays is that they are incredibly thin and luminescent, kind of like when LED displays first appeared. Now that LED is becoming more prevalent, a cleaner and greener alternative is also appearing in the form of OLEDs.

I wasn’t surprised to see that a crop of new lamps are going to come to the market, based on OLED technology. Personally, I really like LED lighting. It has great uses. Now that OLED lamps are going to appear, things will really get interesting. The Comet lamp was designed by Toshiyuki Kita and uses a 15 cm square OLED panel that is really thin to light up. OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) is any LED whose emissive electroluminescent layer is composed of a film of organic compounds. The new panels are less than 2mm thick and use a new concept for irradiating surfaces.

OLED lighting technology will reduce energy usage and therefore cut down on CO2 emissions. It also doesn’t employ mercury or any other pollutants. I think that this lamp looks really interesting. The fact that there is a whole panel which lights up is also pretty neat. This will make lamps sleeker and less obtrusive. New ways of using this technology could mean printed OLED panels on a variety of surfaces, not just for electronic displays. [via Designboom, images via Designboom]